Why Kids Should Not Train to Race Year Round

In youth sport after youth sport, the year-round club model is taking hold for children before they reach their tenth birthday. Indeed, making the club team for sports such as soccer and softball is more important than the local high school team for many athletes. The athletes that participate on the clubs often receive very high levels of coaching, though that is not a given. AAU basketball, for example, is more about showcasing talent for colleges than for skills development. 

The single sport emphasis of today's athletes arguably hurts their athletic development, and actually leads to more injuries. In a study presented by authors NA Jayanthi , C. Pinkham, and A. Luke, titled THE RISKS OF SPORTS SPECIALIZATION AND RAPID GROWTH IN YOUNG ATHLETES, they found a significant correlation towards specialized athletes and injury rates. Another study, done by the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM), supports the same conclusion, arguing that the increase in overuse injuries is reaching epidemic proportions.

In both studies, it was the level of organized activities that correlated most with injury rates. That organizational bent usually was the result of early specialization, which added time to the training activity on the assumption that more and early work would lead to improved skills. It also led to highly repetitive drills that created overuse injuries.

In recent NFL drafts, 80 percent of the players taken in the first round were multi-sport competitors in high school. I've talked with coaches, both at the D1 level and at high schools, most prefer athletes with a varied sports background. Rick Riley, in a conversation we had last year, suggested part of his success in running came from the varied activities - swimming, hiking, bucking hay - that he did as a youth. Each built different muscles and trained the nervous system to respond to new inputs and made the whole stronger in the process.

The legendary Dr. Jack Daniels concurred, writing in his book Daniel's Running Formula that "all runners can benefit from breaks in training." Bill Bowerman, as reported in Kenny Moore's excellent Bowerman and the Men of Oregon, despised indoor track, feeling that it interfered with the necessary base building activity that a runner need to engage in while recharging the system. After the Munich Olympics, he gave Steve Prefontaine months off, telling him to just keep moving until the fire came back.

Which leads us to a second concern about year-round training and racing. Along side of the injury issues are recurring stories of athletes burned out by the process. When the simple act of running becomes a constant grind of training, with each run measured by the success of the training stimulus and not the pleasure, it turns to work. For some, that hard work is it's own reward, but the number of individuals that can function on a constant diet of stress is minimal. Most kids break down, either physically or emotionally. We lose two-thirds of our athletes from junior high to high school this way.

There is a season for everything and every season has an end. For too many kids, the training begins to resemble the ordeal of Sisyphus, forever pushing a boulder up the mountain, but never destined to reach the top. At some point, the labors must be over and the hero gets both the rewards of the effort, and a chance to rest briefly on his or her laurels with the competitive fire banked until it's needed again. When it is, the passion will return and the athlete returns to the task renewed and stronger.

To quote Pat Tyson, head coach at Gonzaga, speaking of the goals for young runners, "Number one is just to gain a passion for running. To love the morning, to love the trail, to love the pace on the track. And if some kid gets really good at it, that's cool too."

It's a great quote and shows that Pat Tyson has his priorities solidly founded on bedrock principles. There's a reason he won multiple state championships at Mead High School and is beloved by his athletes. It's not my favorite quote, though. My favorite from Pat shows how uncomplicated it can be and simultaneously deep.

Love the run.

"The Dude buys a stopwatch."

The title comes from Bill Bowerman's book called "Jogging" in the section on how to jog. The idea of jogging isn't the first to immediately come to mind when you bring William J. Bowerman, co-founder of Nike, coach of Pre, into mind. Usually, it's the magnificent runners charging across the Eugene landscape, or powering through the final lap at Hayward that catch our imagination, not a very pedestrian jogger out on the road.

Yet, more than any one individual, except perhaps Dr. Kenneth Cooper, did more to set the spark to the original running boom in the United States. He did so after his well-publicized visit to New Zealand and meeting with Arthur Lydiard. Embarrassed by his own lack of fitness, he returned to the States an acolyte for running for everyone instead just the elite masses.

In Jogging, Bowerman lays out a simple-to-follow program of exercise in 127 pages. Most of those pages are devoted to one of the three training programs but the first forty pages or so is devoted to everything you need to start a jogging habit now. Those introductory pages include the reasoning behind the program, namely we're an unfit nation - in 1967, mind you! That assessment certainly will not have changed. He also gives the new jogger all the tools needed to run. For clothing, anything loose and comfortable from your drawer, a pair of shoes, though not necessarily running shoes ("You may purchase a pair [of running shoes] or get by nicely with what you have at home.")

That's it. For timing, he suggested a wristwatch or pocket watch. Nothing was so exact with a jogging program that a few seconds of sloppiness in the timing department would ruin things. You can almost hear the derision in Bowerman's voice when he writes, "The dude buys a stop watch." For those of you under, well my age, dude hasn't always been a greeting you toss at your friends. It used to be a term more synonymous with a dandy or a pretender.

Bowerman also reserved some pointed remarks for the sports culture in the country. Again, remember that it was 1967. Things have not improved. He makes the interesting point that most ordinary people have been discriminated against in the field of sports. The best coaching, equipment, and venues are reserved for two groups: professional athletes, and youngsters. Before you scoff, go to a big city and try to access the school track outside of school hours. There's an excellent chance that the gates are locked and, if you're caught on 'their' track, you'll be warned against trespassing. Grossmont Community College in San Diego comes immediately to mind.

Bowerman favored the creation of running clubs but I'm not sure what he would have thought of our current crop. I suspect he'd be a bit dismayed. One of the admonitions in the back of the book as he talks of forming clubs, both formal and informal, was this: "Watch out for the "professional," who urges you "ever upward." This type of instructor regards you as something akin to un-American if you don't strive all the time. That's not what jogging is about."

Something to think about the next time you head for the track and I'll throw in another question as a bonus.

Are you having fun?